The New Not-quite Eating Disorders

Aury Wallington, 28, tried drinking herself thin: “In college, I invented a cocktail called the ‘thin-a-rita’—tequila and fruit-flavored diet shake,” says Wallington, who lives in Los Angeles. “It tasted gritty, but the idea was to get skinny by getting a buzz to take my mind off dinner.”

Jennifer Nies, 30, also invented a diet gimmick: eating jalapeno poppers—yes, those deep-fried cream cheese-stuffed things—for breakfast. “I felt so guilty about having really crappy food in the morning,” explains Nies, also from L.A., “that I ate much less the rest of the day.”

Niky Roberts, a 28-year-old from St. Louis, remembers her most out-there weight loss trick: “A water fast, only it wasn’t really water,” she recalls. “It was a mixture of water, sugar and Tabasco. That lasted about eight hours.”

Think these get-thin schemes sound ridiculous? Before you judge these women, take a look at your own eating habits over the years—shockingly few among us haven’t eliminated an entire food group, subsisted on a draconian calorie restriction diet, or followed some other what-was-I-thinking plan. After all, we’re a nation of fad dieters. “Very few women have a healthy relationship with food,” says Alice Rosen, a licensed mental health counselor in Boston who treats eating problems.

When you see our habits in print, they seem downright crazy. For many women, though, this is what eating has become: letting our self-esteem ride on how many calories cross our lips; eating little in public yet pigging out when no one’s around; making it through the day on portions appropriate for a preschooler. At the very least, these habits keep women from enjoying food and from feeling their best. At their worst, such diet maneuvers become a ritualistic pattern experts call disordered eating—food issues that are similar to but not as severe as full-fledged eating disorders.

Since it’s not an official diagnosis, little research exists on how widespread the problem is. “Eating disorders get all the attention,” but disordered eating is much more common, says Jean Fain, a psychotherapist and instructor at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Sometimes it starts innocently enough with a desire to lose a few pounds, but many women end up obsessed with eating and dieting.

Chrissy Medeiros, 38, of Needham, Massachusetts, has been fixated on food and exercise since she started her first diet more than 20 years ago. She tracks her caloric input and output with actuarial efficiency; when she goes over her limit, she isn’t content until she burns off that exact number of calories at the gym. From the outside, Medeiros, who wears a size 4, appears healthy, but her issues with food have been all-consuming. “I constantly obsess about food, exercise and trying to be ‘healthy,’” she says. “What I want is to not be so worried if I ate three bites of pie that week.”

Experts say that women like Medeiros can break out of the dieting mind-set and learn to enjoy food without becoming overweight. The process starts with a change in perspectives. “Healthy eating doesn’t mean following a strict eating plan,” says Ellie Krieger, R.D., author of Small Changes, Big Results and host of the Food Network’s Healthy Appetite. Instead, she says, it means trusting yourself to eat when hungry and stop when full, and routinely getting nutrient-rich foods while allowing the occasional double-fudge indulgence. Katherine Tallmadge, a nutritionist in Washington, D.C., and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, agrees. “Eating right is not dieting. Think about it as nurturing yourself.”

Tallmadge also recommends being more active—and she’s not talking about making desperate trips to the gym to burn off last night’s deep-dish pizza. “That makes exercise just another form of punishment, which can be as unhealthy as dieting,” she says. Just walking more during the course of an average day can make a difference, she says. “People obsess less about food when they’re more active, and they eat more normally.”

Part of treating your body well also means letting go of eating plans and gimmicks. “A healthy eater is in touch with her body and trusts herself,” Rosen says. Once you add in more vegetables, fruits and whole grains, nutritionists (and healthy eaters alike) swear that in time you’ll start craving, say, an apple rather than a Hostess apple pie. Aly Saxe, 28, from Phoenix, can attest to this phenomenon: “I used to have a weakness for strawberry ice cream,” she says. “Then I started eating actual strawberries. Now I find myself wanting real fruit flavor instead of the fake, sugary kind. It just tastes better.”

That idea is key to a technique many therapists now recommend called “mindful eating.” While it sounds very Zen, it’s simply about focusing on your food while you’re eating. “Most Americans are not paying attention to what food even tastes like,” says Fain. Start by eliminating distractions. “At the very least, turn away from your computer or pull the car over while you eat,” recommends Brian Wansink, Ph.D., director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab in Ithaca, New York, and author of Mindless Eating. As you eat, ask yourself what you taste with the first bite—and then do the same with each bite. Pay attention to whether you’re filling up, and don’t judge yourself if you’re still hungry. Stop when you’ve had enough, not when you’re stuffed to the point of discomfort. It should be no surprise that these steps can actually help you lose weight—several of Fain’s clients have done just that. (The technique can even reduce binges: “If you’re going to eat Ben & Jerry’s because you’re depressed, at least savor it and enjoy it fully,” says Jean Kristeller, Ph.D., a psychologist at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. “Then you won’t want a second bowl.”)

To forever escape the diet mentality, women need to stop punishing themselves over each and every food choice. (It seems to be a female habit: A recent Cornell University study found that women have 50 percent more guilt than men do after indulging.) “Remember, you’re not a good or bad person based on what you eat,” says Krieger. “Eating well and enjoying your food are a great part of life. The way you get there is understanding that you don’t need to be perfect. It’s not even something to strive for.”

Do you have a not-quite eating disorder? Ask yourself:

First, assess how you feel about food

Do you judge your self-worth on how much or what you’ve eaten?

Do you often feel ashamed for eating “bad” foods, like sweets, fats or carbs?

Do you obsess about food and eating so much that it takes up lots of energy and time during the day?

Do you regularly turn to food for comfort when you’re stressed, angry or upset?

Then, take a look at your eating habits

Do you feel compelled to count calories on a regular basis?

Do you eat in secret or lie about how much you’ve eaten?

Do you often lose weight on a crash diet, only to gain it back within a short period of time?

Do you eat little during the day, then overeat at night?

Do you try to eliminate certain foods from your diet (carbs or fats, for example)?

If you said yes to one or more questions in column 1 and to one or more questions in column 2, experts say you may be a disordered eater. For a therapist, go to apa.org.